A Western Sydney Vision

At the end of 2015, the NSW Government committed to developing the Fleet Street Heritage Precinct as a new Urban centre for Western Sydney – a plan for over 3000 new dwellings (and 8000 new residents) moving into Parramatta and commuting into the City to work. I’ve prepared a response to the NSW Premier and NSW Planning Minister on the behalf of O-vation – and we’re hopeful that the Government will agree with our view that Western Sydney deserves better than second best.

As residents of Western Sydney, my colleagues and I appreciate the renewed focus of the NSW Government on our region after almost two decades of neglect – but we believe that the plan to develop the Fleet Street Precinct as a residential zone would be a wasted opportunity to instead develop it as a significant tourism asset and employment opportunity for residents of Greater Western Sydney. Rather than creating new housing for yet more Western Sydney residents travelling east to the City to work, the new public transport infrastructure this Government has committed to could bring people into Parramatta to work, learn and play.

The Fleet Street Precinct represents a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to establish Sydney as a global capital of Arts and Culture – as home of the new Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences, a modern, world-class Riverside Theatres capable of hosting large-scale, long-term productions, Aboriginal and Colonial History museums incorporating the Female Factory, and an Arts and Culture industry hub including Creative Co-working facilities, studio spaces and offices catering to some 50000 workers every day. The other mooted sites for the new MAAS represent a downgrade from the existing site at Ultimo – there are several sites within the Fleet Street Precinct that represent a much better opportunity than the sites currently under consideration.

The Camellia Precinct can have the same transformative effect for the Tech Startup sector – a suburb that is capable of providing large-scale Asia-Pacific headquarters for organisations like Google and Apple, world headquarters for home-grown organisations like Atlassian, and residential and working space for thousands of new startups quickly outgrowing existing tech hubs in Ultimo and Darlinghurst. The White Bay Power Station is not a long-term solution for these organisations – Camellia is.

With a firm commitment from the NSW Government to the Camellia Precinct as a Tech hub, startups will be able to scale from a single employee to thousands, and the sector will be able to make full use of both the new International Convention Centre at Darling Harbour, and new facilities already mooted for Rosehill Gardens. The cost of living is considerably cheaper in Western Sydney, lowering the barriers of entry into the startup world and encouraging new and exciting ventures – and the Camellia Precinct can have the same transformative impact on the entirety of Western Sydney as precincts like Silicon Valley have had for San Francisco.

We believe that our approach to developing both the Fleet Street Precinct and the Camellia Precinct is not only beneficial to Western Sydney in the long term, but the fiscally responsible course for this Government to take. Creating new opportunities for businesses to establish in Sydney, for Art and Culture to flourish, and new employment opportunities for the residents of the entire Sydney basin is a far more sensible course to take than one that results in more and more residents of Western Sydney commuting in and out of the Sydney CBD.